The commercial paging technology proved useful for remotely controlling substation and feeder devices. At an industry meeting on automated meter reading, a CP&L attendee inquired about the possibility of using the design for a control function on an electric utility system. After general agreement that such an application was feasible, a request for information was submitted to 12 companies that produced traditional capacitor controllers. Only two manufacturers responded. The respondents investigated the practicality of developing a 900-MH z commercial technology that used an industry-standard transport protocol for capacitor control. Meanwhile, CP&L investigated the possibility of having an established pager manufacturer use a 900-MHz product. As it turned out, CP&L found a new product that met its requirements. Samples of the pager were obtained for the two manufacturers who had indicated interest in the project and implimentation. While both manufacturers found the pager to be of value, thought its price would result in a prohibitively high final cost to the utility. CP&L convinced the pager manufacturer that there was a potentially large market for the product if the cost could be lowered. The pager manufacturer not only agreed to lower its cost, but also offered to test each prototype in its radio frequency (RF) test chamber and provide suggestions for improving communications performance. Together with the capacitor controller manufacturers, CP&L devised specifications for integrating the paging components into the capacitor controller devices.